Ashes
by Riverlightillusion
Summary: I just wanted to go on a journey. That's all: to leave this dead-end orphanage in Cyllage City and travel around Kalos with Pokemon. I finally got my chance through sheer luck, but now I'm involved in something. Something big. Who is that woman? What do my nightmares mean? How am I connected to Flare?
1. Chapter 1: those who were forgotten

**Chapter 1**

those who were forgotten

...

My skin burned.

Inside the house, a beam crashed to the ground, but my deafened, ringing ears barely even registered the noise.

I struggled to move, to back away from the wood of the door that was hissing and popping with heat. A small cloud of sparks blasted out of the screaming wood in front of my eyes, and I tried to jump back, but the pressure of the arm across my chest kept me from escaping.

I saw a man run toward the door. He started pounding it with both his arms, but even weakened by the flame it held and kept him inside.

Something wet hit the top of my head. I looked up to see the face of the girl who held me. She seemed impossibly tall and far away, somehow keeping me in place with one arm, resisting my struggles to move and get away. The shiny trails of tears that had boiled away glowed in the fire's light. She held her chin high, defiantly, so that I couldn't see her eyes.

A shower of falling debris hit the man, lighting the stains on his shirt. The girl put her other hand over my eyes so that I couldn't see as the screaming started.

...

"Liz, get back here with my Pokemon!" I said like the dignified gentleman I obviously was, standing here in my sweaty basketball jersey and cargo pants.

Okay, if I was being honest I screamed it into the dim cave like a maniac while racing after her. I had every right to overreact like that, though, since she had just stolen my Pokemon, the one thing I'd wanted for what felt like my whole life. I had always dreamed of getting a Pokemon and going on a journey. Thanks to a completely legitimate business deal last month that wasn't sketchy or suspicious at all, I had finally gotten one. Now that my dream had come true, I wasn't going to let someone snatch it away.

"I won't let anyone stand in my way! We came this far to catch a Solrock and we're not turning back." Liz had this passion, this drive that usually inspired me but sometimes scared me. It was moments like this that made me wonder if her crazy goals were the only thing holding her together, and if she would fall apart like a sand castle before a wave if she ever failed.

She raced ahead of me, her spiked ponytail bouncing behind her like a flag dragged by a plane. She was wearing the athletic gear she had been so proud of buying last week: the red top with white sleeves and a white stripe up the middle, the apparently moisture-wicking grey tights, and the skirt with a pokeball pattern on it. When she had bought it, I had told her it looked stupid, but she ignored me and wore it anyway. As usual, she was wearing her visor, too, which cast a shadow across her bright, green eyes, making them look dim and somehow empty, like a grimy glass window. I envied how light her clothes were.

"We can just come back later! There's no need to pick a fight!" I shouted. The ranger by the entrance had warned us about a strange group of people who had come in earlier and tried to barricade the cave and keep everyone else out. Since Glittering Cave was a national park and public property, they technically couldn't do that. Apparently, the law didn't matter to them, since the ranger told us he had helped some tourists they roughed up earlier today. We had just run into one of them, who warned us to stay away. Since I didn't want to take any risks this early in my journey, especially not picking fights with creepy pale people in tacky suits, I had backed off. Liz had pretended to go along with me, but she had really just been waiting for an opening. Once I looked away she grabbed the pokeball in my right pocket and raced back toward the man who had blocked our path.

"Wes," Liz began. That was me, my name since I had arrived at Madame Amedee's home. Only Madame Amedee and I knew the other one. That was fine with me. I liked Wes better anyway. "I won't let anyone stop me."

"I know Pokemon are your passion," I said, trying and failing to reason with her. "Trust me, I know what it's like to want to get Pokemon and go on a journey. I understand more than you know. But don't let the excitement of finally seeing that you can get what you want lead you into a dangerous situation like this." I rolled my eyes at myself as I spoke, knowing that I had done the exact same thing last month when I had been offered the chance to have my own Pokemon. I had rushed into that situation without considering how wrong everything about it was.

Liz knew this as well, since I had told her the story. "Are you even hearing yourself, Wes? If you actually thought that, you wouldn't have been Damien's errand boy." I couldn't deny it and just looked away guiltily. "You, me, and him, we can do this. That guy doesn't even look strong! Let's go!"

Before I could stop her, she raced back the we had come and I heard her issue a challenge. I had no choice but to follow.

I found Liz, her fists clenched and her whole body shaking slightly, standing with her shoulders squared at the man. He was holding a pokeball and smiling like the most conceited rich bastard who ever lived, someone who genuinely thought he was untouchable. The whole scene was foreboding, with the man and his tacky orange suit framed against the backdrop of mine cart tracks receding endlessly into the roughly hewn cave lit dimly by an ungodly amount of lanterns. You would think that having so many lanterns would bathe the whole cave in light, but that wasn't the case. The way the lanterns flickered made me wonder if they were about to go out. Great, and then we would be trapped in the sharp darkness with a very sketchy man. That wouldn't be a great end to the first day of my long-awaited journey.

"You're back? I thought you were going to be smart and leave." I wasn't a violent person, but the man's smirk was making me seriously want to hit him. "You don't really think this cave is the best spot for a date, do you?"

"It's not your cave!"

"We're not dating!"

Liz and I both shouted at him at once, both thinking about different things. She looked at me quizzically and I just shrugged.

"You think you can talk that way just because you've got a rare Pokemon with you?" He laughed mirthlessly and lazily tossed his pokeball at the ground. A Pokemon rose into existence, each little bit of light building up like a pile of sand and eventually bursting apart to reveal a small, canine Pokemon. The ball bounced back from the magnetism and he caught it without really looking at it. "I'll teach you not to irritate an agent of Flare."

"What's Flare?" I asked.

"We are an organization that should strike fear into your heart!" he proclaimed while posing.

"I don't care who you are! No one's getting in my way, especially not a guy with a Houndour and an ugly suit!" Liz shouted back at him, her heart clearly not struck with fear.

"Ugly? This suit is beautiful!" The man seethed with anger, trying to catch a glimpse of himself in a particularly shiny crystal embedded in the wall.

"No, it's really awful," I said, agreeing with Liz's evaluation. "I've never seen something so awful and everybody I live with wears literal garbage."

"It's not garbage, Wes," Liz said. She and I had talked about this before. "It's charity and it's really nice."

"It might as well be garbage," I said, shuddering uncomfortably in the clothes I knew someone else had worn. "Someone threw it away."

"Enough chatter!" screamed the Flare agent, his cool disposition shattered by our insults. "Houndour! Smog!" His Pokemon dropped its head to the rocky ground and vomited up a coiling, purple snake of gas that started to slither in our direction.

"Ba-" I started.

"Wes, like I said, I'll do this!" Liz interrupted me. She turned my Pokemon and called out his name and a command. "Bagon! Dodge it!"

Wonderful. My first day going somewhere with a Pokemon and my traveling companion was fighting with him instead of me. This situation kind of described my whole life. I was never the star of anything. In fact, if anyone wrote a story about me, it would probably begin with something embarrassing, like me losing my Pokemon.

My Pokemon rolled to the side, a cool maneuver he had been doing ever since I first got him, and avoided the smoke. The smoke didn't stop there, and Liz and I had to scramble out of the way as well.

"Why would you use a move with such low accuracy?" Liz asked. "You're just asking your Pokemon to miss. Let's strike back with a Headbutt!"

"Liz, stop! Let me!" I shouted.

"I'm getting you a registration for the League, remember. You said you didn't feel like you were giving me enough back to justify the deal, right? Well, let me do this and it will definitely be a fair deal." I couldn't argue with anything she said, and just grumbled as I watched the battle unfold.

Bagon closed the distance with a lunge and smashed the enemy Houndour with a full-force blow. Coming from his stout muscles and thick skull, it hit hard. The Houndour whined and skidded back, having to dig its claws into the rocky turf to stop.

"Ember!" shouted the Flare agent. I stumbled back and almost lost my footing as images flooded my mind. I grabbed a wall and steadied myself, not allowing this to happen. If I was going to be a trainer, I would be seeing a lot of fire moves. I couldn't let them affect me like this. I turned back to my Pokemon and watched the small jet of flame refract off his scales.

"That wasn't a very effective choice," Liz said smugly. "Are you even trying to win?"

"Stop taunting him and just finish this," I said.

Liz called for another Headbutt, which effortlessly connected with the weakened Houndour's flank. It slumped to the rust-colored ground, its face peaceful and breathing shallow. I couldn't tell whether it was unconscious or just giving up on the fight, but either way, we had won.

"Stupid kids," said the man in the orange suit. He recalled his Houndour and tried to stand in our way again, but my Pokemon hissed at him and he grudgingly moved to one side of the tunnel, letting us pass. "At least I lost in style. Watch yourself. I'm not the only member of Flare. And if you disappear in this cave, it could be a long time before you find your way out." Liz and I both ignored him, making him pout.

"See? I won," Liz proclaimed proudly, doing a little twirl and adjusting her visor.

"Yeah, you and my loyal Pokemon make a great team," I said. "Can I have this back?"

"I suppose," she said. "I'll need to keep my hands free to catch a Solrock anyway." I frowned at that. Liz could say really selfish and confusing things sometimes, and she didn't even seem to notice when she was bothering someone. I had been trying to point this out for years, and she still didn't seem to understand it. People had asked me if she was on the spectrum before because of some of her stranger comments.

Liz returned my pokeball to me. Once we had walked far enough that the Flare agent wasn't watching us anymore, I hugged my Pokemon close and he nuzzled me with his blue snout. "Great fighting, Bagon," I said, picking him up. I was going to twirl him around or some other silly shit, but he was shockingly heavy and I dropped him with a groan. "Traitor."

"I have been around for all the battles you two have fought so far," Liz said. "I coached you through you first one, too. He's not really a traitor for battling alongside me. I'm like his aunt or something."

I gave him a playful noogie before standing up to talk to Liz about something bothering me. "Actually, he fought better with you than he did with me. He didn't panic at all. Why?"

"He hasn't panicked every time you've battled with him," said Liz, her voice dropping to barely a whisper as well. For some reason, we were always quiet whenever we talked about my Pokemon's occasional episodes that fell somewhere between blind panic and berserk rage. "And when he has, it's only been when you were losing. That time, we dominated the battle and never came close to losing. If you had been fighting with him instead of me, he would've done the same thing."

"Really?" I was starting to worry if maybe Liz would be a better match for Bagon as I trainer than I was.

"Probably," she said, making me groan in annoyance. "You know, if you're still worried about this, you can take the next one."

"Next one?" I asked incredulously. I completely ignored the fact that Liz had given me permission to battle with my own Pokemon. She said things like that, well-intentioned but slightly arrogant, all the time. What I was worried about was her belief that we'd fight someone else in here. "You mean the next Flare agent?"

"Exactly!" Liz agreed with a satisfied smile. "You can battle the next one and see whether or not he panics for yourself."

"We're not going to battle another one! We were lucky enough to win that one! We can just stay and hunt for a Solrock here."

"Look, a Pokemon!" Liz ignored me and gestured deeper into the cave. A dark shape flitted back into the one shadowy part of the passage where a few lanterns had broken as if it were avoiding my eyes specifically.

"Let's hope it's a Solrock so we can get out of here," I said.

We closed in on the Pokemon and forced it out into the light. Its rocky body looked like a shape from the night sky, and some kind of psychic distortion made the air around it hazy, like smoke on a hot day.

"No!" Liz whined.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "We found it!"

"That's not a Solrock," Liz explained wearily. "It's a Lunatone."

"What's the difference?"

Liz sighed. "Just knock it out or something. It's not useful to me at all."

"Ready?" Bagon nodded eagerly, in the mood for another fight. "Bite!"

As he lunged at the weird rock creature, it spun and released some kind of of wobbly pink wave.

"That's Psywave," Liz noted.

"What do I do about it?" I asked.

"There's not really anything you can do," she explained apathetically.

The wave hit Bagon in his midsection, knocking him out of the air and stunning him. While he was dazed, the wild Lunatone tried to make an escape.

"Don't let it get away!" Liz called.

"Bagon, hit it with Rage!"

"What? Against a rock Pokemon?"

"If he's going to get hit from a distance, then I should use a move like rage, right? Then he'll get stronger every time he gets hit," I said. My reasoning made sense, at least to me.

"It's just a wild Pokemon. Don't think too hard. All you have to do to finish it is spam Bite."

"Why are we trying to beat it, anyway? It's running away." Even thought it was a strange rock creature, I felt bad for it. It had a scared look in its eyes.

"You want to defeat every wild Pokemon you come across. Your Pokemon grow stronger that way," Liz said.

"I know that, but every wild Pokemon? That's a little reckless, don't you think? What if you knock it unconscious and then a predator finds it?" Battles and training were the basics of being a trainer, but what Liz said about them didn't sound right to me. Then again, Liz knew a lot more about Pokemon than I did.

Liz's answer was simple and heartless. "That's how the food chain works."

I shrugged and continued battling. Bagon and I finished off the Lunatone without much trouble, leaving it there in the middle of the dimly lit passage.

"Why couldn't we have just caught it? It looked a lot like a Solrock to me."

"Solrock can learn fire moves that Lunatone can't, like Sunny Day or Flamethrower," Liz explained. "I want to create a team that thrives in sun and bright light."

I shrugged. "Well, whatever makes you happy." Liz did things like this on occasion, obsessing over a random goal that made more sense to her than anyone else. "Is this going to be like the time you went to that party?"

"What party?"

"The only party you've ever been to," I said, chatting amiably to keep my spirits up as the cave grew darker and creepier. Even Bagon was feeling uneasy. He started walking a little closer to me. I grinned at him when he grabbed the my cargo pants and he looked away, embarrassed. He always tried to seem so tough, but I could tell he was a very nervous and timid Pokemon.

"Oh, that one," she said. "Giovana's party."

"The one where you punched Leo in the face," I said.

"Why are you smiling?" she demanded.

"That's still so funny," I said. "That's just so you. He totally deserved it, too. But the point is you worked so hard to convince Giovana to invite you and then you made a huge scene and left. "

"Oh, and you were trying to make a comparision between Solrock and the party," Liz said, catching on quickly.

"The wild Pokemon and that weird man would be Leo." I looked down at Bagon, who was looking seriously scared. "Hey, you can ride in here if you want."

Bagon shook his head at the pokeball I was offering. He puffed up his little chest and started walking ahead of Liz and me. He preferred to face his fears, something I respected him for.

"That's creative but somewhat flawed," Liz said. "In that case, I got what I wanted and then ruined it because of a fight. In this case, I'm fighting to get what I want. They are truly two very different sets of circumstances."

I could tell by her tone that she had made up her voice and would be impossible to convince, so I gave up. "Anyway, I'm hoping that since we found a Lunatone, a Solrock will be close by."

"Close by? Close by?" A woman's voice echoed from around the corner. The speaker stepped out to greet us, wearing a familiar orange suit.

"Let me guess: You're another member of Flare?" I asked. She nodded. "Don't worry about how I knew that, I'm just a genius."

She stared at me with a laughable look of confusion for a second, but then shook her head and asked us a question. "How did you two get past the guard? He's supposed to keep people out of this area."

"Are you going to get in my way too?" Liz demanded. Suddenly, it was as if Liz was a towering giant, casting a shadow on everything below her. She was so focused on her goal she almost seemed lost.

"I have to," said the Flare agent, sounding a little hesitant. "I can't have you interfere with the field test. We've had enough trouble getting it started already." She pulled a Pokeball from the pocket of her orange pants and prepared to throw it. Liz stepped forward to confront her, but I shook my head and stepped past.

"I'll do this," I said. "Are you ready, Bagon?"

He nodded and narrowed his eyes. Our enemy sent in a green Pokemon with a crackling cry that made the back of my neck tingle.

"It's an Electrike," Liz said. "Its type is-"

"Electric," I said, finishing her sentence. "These things live on the cliff above our town. I already know about them. Also, its name sounds exactly like its type."

Liz shrugged. "I always forget how much you already know."

"Wow, that's nice," I said with a sarcastic smile. Liz shrugged again.

"Are you two done chatting?" asked the Flare agent. "Shock Wave!"

Bagon shrugged off the burst of electricity and snorted at them. That set the tone for the rest of the battle. They couldn't really do much to us, and I kept calling for a Leer to set up and then getting Bagon to use Headbutt when Electrike's guard was down.

"No! Please don't go any farther!" The agent returned her Pokemon and started some futile begging. "We have a scientist testing some new equipment in there, and you could get hurt if you interfere."

"Your advice is noted," said Liz. She stepped forward as if to shake the agent's hand, but instead brutally shoved the orange-suited woman to one side. "And ignored."

"Liz, don't escalate the situation," I said, laying a hand on my friend's shoulder as the agent mouthed some choice words at us. "You don't have to shove them around."

"They can't take this cave from the public, and they can't take my chance to catch a Solrock from me," she explained as we walked.

"Why do you want to catch a Solrock so badly anyway?" I took a potion from my bag and sprayed Bagon down as we walked. I could see the energy return to his walk as the medicine worked. It was like magic. If only they made medicine like that for people. "Do you have any more potions?

"Solrock are so cute!" Liz proclaimed, handing me another bottle of potion.

I stopped and turned to stare at her. "H-how is a Solrock cute? It's literally a pebble with eyes and little rock spike things."

"Well, I think they're cute."

"We've been doing all this because you think Solrock are cute!" I was almost too flabbergasted to keep going. "I thought there was some deep reason, like a Solrock had saved you when you were little. I can't believe this."

"You're the one who wants to see all of Kalos! You can't complain about traveling extra distance if you want to see the whole region," Liz said defensively.

I shrugged, unable to argue with that point. But her calling Solrock cute made me think of another time she had thrown that word around. "Cute," I said derisively. "I guess that explains Yves."

"Don't bring him up!"

"I mean, he looked like a pebble," I continued, smirking at Liz's reaction.

"No he didn't."

"Come on, you know he did."

Liz relented. "I suppose from a certain angle…"

"No, he just looked like a rock."

"Fine, he did."

Liz checked the time on her Holo Caster. "It will be dark soon. If we don't find a Solrock before nightfall, we should return to Ambrette Town and try again tomorrow."

"Can we leave earlier than that? I don't want to cross Route 9 at night," I said. "That's just not safe in the dark."

"Excellent point," Liz said. "That means we have another hour of searching. Oh, Wes, did you notice? During that last battle, Bagon didn't panic either?"

"I did," I said with a silly grin. "He's really getting comfortable with me now."

The first time Bagon and I had battled together had been a few weeks ago, against a fisherman and his two Tentacool. Liz had been there to coach me through my first battle, which I greatly appreciated. I knew how battles basically went from watching the Kalos League on TV every year, but Liz's absurd knowledge of all the mechanics of Pokemon battles was invaluable. We had taken down the first Tentacool with a little trouble and a lot of advice from Liz, but the second had poisoned Bagon. After that, he completely lost control, battling savagely, ignoring me, and charging like a maniac with no regard for his own safety. After he battered the water Pokemon into submission, he had been about to tear into its unconscious body with his frenzied fangs. Fortunately, the fisherman had recalled it before Bagon could attack. Since then, whenever he got seriously hurt or terrified, he would start panicking and fight like that. Liz and I couldn't figure out what he was thinking or what was going on there. Even freshly caught wild Pokemon adjusted to trainer battles faster than that. One trainer asked me if Bagon had been abused before I got him, making me feel even worse about taking Bagon from Damien when I knew so little. I kept hoping that Bagon would eventually stop doing that when he started really trusting and getting used to me, and it looked like that was happening.

Ahead, the cave narrowed to a claustrophobic crawl space, barely more than a meter in diameter. The lanterns also stopped, leaving everything ahead bathed in darkness. Liz shined her flashlight into the opening, revealing that it lead into a large area, like a doorway separating the bright part of the cave from the shadow.

"There's a light in there somewhere," Liz said. "I see it flickering. We just have to get past a few meters of darkness."

"Hold on," I said. "I hear something."

"I'm almost finished collecting fossils, but our guards said a couple of teenagers got past them." An oddly familiar, hollow-sounding, female voice echoed across the stone. "How safe is this device? I don't want to put them in danger."

"You still haven't used it, have you?" A sophisticated and cold male voice answered her. There was some kind of distortion in it, though, like it was coming from a PA system. "I knew I should've chosen Aliana to test the gauntlet."

"She's a loose cannon," answered the cool, dispassionate female voice. "She's not trustworthy. If she ever offers you help, it's a lie."

"I trust her with my life!" The static-laden male voice grew indignant. "You're the one who really isn't trustworthy. You worry too much to complete our objectives!"

"More of those Flare people," I said.

"Obviously," agreed Liz. "Let's go fight them."

"Hold on," I said. "There are at least two of them, and we have only one Pokemon. Also, they said they're testing a device. I'm not going to put Bagon in the middle of some kind of dangerous experiment."

"Why do you always worry about everything, Wes?" Liz grabbed my shoulders and stared into my eyes. "You're always being cautious and avoiding anything remotely risky."

"I'm trying to keep my new Pokemon safe!" I sputtered, indignant. "He's just starting to trust me!"

"No, don't blame this on Bagon! You've been doing this forever. Actually, I think the deal you made with Damien is the only risky thing you've ever done."

"I still don't feel right about that," I said.

"Look! Look at what you got from it, though! Now take a risk with me, and I'll get a Solrock, and you'll get a League Registration." She threw our deal back at me, and I almost gave in.

"No," I said. "Liz, there are so many other parts of this cave we still haven't explored. You don't have to choose the only part of it that's dangerous. You know what, this is what you always do! You always get so obsessed with taking down everyone in your way that you forget what you even wanted in the first place! This is why everyone at school hates you."

Liz's eyes narrowed and she looked away. I winced. I had crossed the line, going from our usual tense but friendly disagreements to actually hurting her. "We're graduating soon anyway, so does it even matter what they think? I'm going. If you really need to leave, you can." With that, she crawled through the tiny passage and I heard people start shouting in the next cavern. People always seemed to be shouting wherever Liz went.

"Damn it, Liz," I swore. I couldn't let her just go off on her own. "Bagon, we have to go get her."

A lantern flared to light as I crawled in, banishing the inky shadows and bathing the cavern in a harsh light. Weirdly enough, the cavern was huge despite the tiny entrance. Inside, Liz was confronting two people standing against the far wall. The cave appeared to end here, and the only way out was to back the way we had come. Tiny outcropping of somehow sickly-looking crystals that looked more like diseased plants than gemstones dotted the walls, and partially exposed bones pushed through the rock wall in other places. All in all, it didn't look like a very fun place.

"Whatever you're doing, stop it now!" Liz stood before the two people in orange, her fists clenched at her sides. Instead of looking defiant and cool, she just looked stupid.

"You don't even know what we're doing," said a man wearing an orange suit. His hair was tousled like he had just walked through a windstorm and his blood-red sunglasses were so cracked I didn't know how he could see. He spoke with a faint accent. Japanese, maybe?

"Please leave now," said the woman standing next to him, not even looking up at us as she spoke. She was clearly another member of Flare, but she wasn't wearing the same orange suit as the rest. Instead she was wearing something that looked like a mixture of a dress, armor, and a lab coat. Somehow despite being so piecemeal, her outfit had an elegance to it. Her hair, a deep, fake purple, gleamed in the lamp's light. Her mouth was set in an expression of pained indifference as she looked at the Holo Caster in her hand, where a hologram of a stout man with impossibly pale skin and ugly, tiny glasses was addressing her.

"There truly are no end to the distractions when our leader puts you in charge of a mission. You're a scientist who belongs in the lab, not the field," said the stout, pale man. The disapproving, static-laden voice I heard earlier belonged to him. "Don't make it a complete failure. Aliana and I can't do all of our organization's work forever."

"Goodbye, Xerosic," said the woman in the orange lab coat. She switched the Holo Caster off and stowed it away with a look of disgust. She looked up at Liz and me. "You two should leave as well." Her eyes were covered by some kind of bizarre silver and purple mask that marked where her eyes would be with a line of glowing violet. I couldn't see her eyes, but I could tell from her mouth that she was shocked when she looked at me, and she started stuttering. "D-do-Have we?"

"What are you on about?" asked the wild-haired agent, scribbling something in a notepad.

The scientist took a deep breath and stopped stammering. "He just looked like someone I knew. It's nothing."

With that, I looked at her again. There was something very familiar about her face, though I knew I had never met a woman with long purple hair or her distinctive eyewear before. Still, though, something about her brought back a memory, and for a second I was in the midst of a maze of simmering heat and my throat was filled with ashes.

"I'll deal with them," said the wild-haired man. He raised a pokeball. "Megani-"

The scientist put her hand across his chest and gently but insistently pushed him back. "There's no need for that. Continue documenting the samples we've mined. I'll battle them." Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper, but the wild-haired agent obeyed without question, backing down. She was probably his superior then.

"You're not going to stop me!" shouted Liz. "What are you even wearing on your face?"

The scientist largely ignored Liz, clicking open a pokeball quietly in her hand. Streams of white and purple energy coalesced in the air with a sad scream. Arms and a grim-looking head slipped out of the distortion, revealing a Pokemon that looked like it was carved from ice and sadness.

"It's a Froslass," said Liz, sounding surprised. "Those are quite hard to find. Bagon, use-"

"No, Liz," I said. "I'll do this. What type is it?"

"Ice and ghost," Liz said. "You'll be at a disadvantage. Don't let any of its ice moves connect."

I nodded to Bagon, who stepped forward to face the Froslass.

"Froslass, keep them away while I work. Don't hurt them too much, all right?" Her voice remained hollow and emotionless as her Pokemon nodded to her. She turned back to the wall and began inspecting a fossil.

"How dare you turn your back on me!" Liz shouted.

Froslass sneered and formed an orb of pulsating shadow from drops of liquid darkness in its white hand. It threw the orb at Bagon with a flourish of its arm, catching the light in a way that made it look like it wasn't really there. The best way to describe it would be to compare it to an old-fashioned film movie projected on a front of fog.

"That's Shadow Ball!" called Liz.

"Avoid it, Bagon!" I called.

"Good luck avoiding that attack," said the wild-haired man smugly, sketching something on the clipboard he was holding.

Bagon slid to the side and crumpled, trying to duck the move. He was still clipped by the edge of the ball despite his efforts, and snarled in indignation.

"Bite!" I shouted.

The Froslass stared at me, and recognition seemed to flicker across its face. Bagon took advantage of his foe's distraction and leapt up at his opponent and delivered a sold bite, chomping at the arm it had just used to throw its Shadow Ball. The Froslass's eyes clouded over with anger, and it shook Bagon off. Rage was pouring off of it in waves.

"Test the expansion gauntlet," urged the wild-haired agent. "This is the perfect chance."

"We don't even know if it's safe. Besides, it's only a side mission. My main objective is investigating fossils." The scientist kept ignoring him, her words quiet and her focus on the wall. "Froslass will have no trouble beating them."

Froslass raised its arms as if it were praying and snow began to swirl around it.

"Icy Wind," Liz named. "Don't let it hit."

"Bagon, dodge it!" I shouted. I didn't want him to get hit by a move he was weak to.

"Your Pokemon is overmatched," said the scientist with a cold detachment. "So lame. I recommend forfeiting. Though if you want to lose embarrassingly, go right ahead."

Froslass whipped its arms forward, trapping Bagon in a gale of frigid wind before he had any time to react. Bagon spun helplessly, shivering with fear, and my muscles tensed. I wanted to help him.

"Bagon, are you still with me?" I asked.

Bagon looked up at me. His eyes were still clear. We still had a chance, so I called for a Leer. Bagon glared at Froslass with frightening intensity, making the ghost Pokemon flinch back with unease. While its guard was down, we hit it with a Bite. After the move connected, Froslass stared at me, looking very disappointed.

"Liz, that's not good. We just used our best combination and Froslass barely felt it," I said, worried now.

"No, you can do it. Don't let them win!" Liz said angrily.

"I'm bored of this battle," said the scientist, finally turning and giving the fight her attention. "It really is so lame. Froslass, finish it with an Ice Shard."

"You're going to end this before you even test the expansion gauntlet?" asked the wild-haired man. The scientist ignored him.

Froslass circled Bagon, creating an array of diamond-shaped ice crystals while it hovered. With a flick of its wrist, it sent them all crashing into my Pokemon. The move was too quick to avoid or even react to.

"Bagon!" I cried out, unable to do anything.

He somehow dragged himself up from a battered heap on the ground to stand, barely keeping himself himself conscious. His mouth split open in a terrifying roar, something much deeper and more savage than I had heard before. Not again! He was in one of his panic moods, and he wouldn't listen to me. We couldn't afford this now, especially not against a powerful opponent like Froslass.

Bagon lunged at Froslass, his fangs dripping saliva and dark liquid. Despite the fury of his berserk attack, Froslass was just too powerful, effortlessly slapping him away.

"Bagon, stop! You can't fight like that!" I said. He wasn't listening, the light dancing off the tears in his yes. He reminded me of the fury of a young orphan, desperately clinging to the anger to keep the pain away. I remembered that day with Madame Amedee, and I didn't even think about it. I just moved.

"You don't have to be afraid anymore, Bagon. I'm here now," I said, holding him close. His claws tore into my arm, and I grunted in pain but forced myself not to let go. "Bagon, I'm not going anywhere. You're not alone." I could feel Bagon's tense muscles start to relax.

"Enough of this, we're going to carry out the test," said the agent with wild hair. He took something black and fastened it around Froslass's arm. From the ghostly wail of pain, whatever was happening wasn't pleasant, but I didn't have time to focus on that right now. Bagon was my main concern.

"Froslass, stop! Return!" I heard the scientist attempting to return her Pokemon and the dismayed noise of a failed return sequence. "Listen to me!"

"Take that thing off! That's not natural!" Liz was shouting wildly from somewhere to my left.

Bagon calmed down and hugged me. His eyes returned to normal and his lips curled into a faint smile. The happy moment didn't last, though, as he growled a warning and gestured to something above me.

The scientist's Froslass was there, writhing in pain, and trying to claw the black gauntlet off of its arm. The look in its eyes was murderous, and it was creating some kind of massive ice spear, hissing and popping with some kind of corrupt energy. And of course, the move was aimed at Bagon.

"That's not a natural Ice Shard! I don't even think that's a Pokemon move!" Liz shouted. "Wes, escape! Get out of there!"

"No," I said, taking a risk. "Like I said, Bagon, you don't have to face anything alone ever again." I turned, making sure I was in between Froslass and Bagon.

"Froslass, no!" shrieked the scientist. "Hold on, did you say Wes? N-no, it c-can't be."

The ice Pokemon screamed, closed its eyes, and launched the massive blade in my direction.

"I'm here to protect you, Bagon."

"Wes!"

...

_Interlude One_

They were both girls, and probably the same age, but the redheaded one had this energy that marked her as something much, much greater and more terrible than the blue-eyed one.

What do I do? And the blue-eyed one is pouring out her soul like no one has listened to her in years and she has to do something now. She holds up her cup like a hero considering a prophecy and starts to cry.

Sometimes, you just have to take a chance and let it burn. The redheaded one's advice will change so many lives and she doesn't care.

Why are you helping me? The blue-eyed one is acting like she's never seen kindness before, or maybe she has and she's just never trusted it enough to accept it.

I did something bad, and I have to make up for it. The redheaded one's words are hollow and empty, like she doesn't even need an excuse to be this way. She hands over something explosive and smiles. Use it. You know you have to. She smiles as she knows she's lighting a fire that will never go out until it burns everything to ashes.

...

**Disclaimer: **Obviously, Pokemon isn't mine. It's the brilliant creation of Satoshi Tajiri, Ken Sugimori, and their team. Thank you so much for sharing your imagination with us.

**Author's Note: **Hello everybody, I'm back! If anyone is still here, that is. I know it's been months since I've posted. And all of my chapters haven't vanished, this is just what I do. I write three drafts of every story idea I like, and it's fun to see how much I improve from the first to the last. This is the beginning last draft of this story, and it's very satisfying to see how much better it is now than it was the first time around. Thank you to everyone who read and subscribed to the past versions of this story. You guys and gals are the best! Get ready for fast updates this time! Oh, and if anyone can figure out what I'm getting the names of my chapters from this time around, you will get a lot of respect from me.


	2. Chapter 2: those wounded

**Chapter 2**

those wounded

...

Suddenly there was a wet cracking sound and my side felt impossibly heavy.

I looked down. I wasn't sure what I had been expecting, but it wasn't chunks of ice embedded in my side. "That's probably not good," I said to nobody in particular. My voice sounded weak and wobbly.

"Froslass, return!" The Froslass finally disappeared, recalled into a tiny sphere.

"Merde, Wes." I heard Liz mumbling somewhere.

"I'm okay!" I said stupidly, patting my chest. "It missed my heart. It's all on one side!"

The world went black for a second and then my legs gave out. Everyone was suddenly at my side.

"Are you really Wes? Wes Gabena?" the scientist asked.

"That's me, that's my name."

The scientist was babbling something, and she didn't sound as cold and distant as before. She removed the headgear that covered her eyes. Startling blue, like a mirror. I recognized the face beneath.

"Cel," I mumbled. "Celosia. Where did you go? Why did you leave?"

"I didn't leave, Wes! I'm right here," Liz was there, with a hand on my shoulder. "What do I do? This is bad! What do we do!"

I felt Bagon nuzzle my leg and reached down to pet him. "You battled great, big guy. And you listened to me. You're going to fit in great at the Wards' Home."

"What's he talking about? He's not making sense!"

"He's going into shock. Can you hear me?" The scientist's face swam into view above me.

"I can. I can hear you again. Why has it been so long?"

"We're going to get you to a hospital. You! Catch that thing! Wes, do you like your new name?" Her voice was soft and comforting, and I felt her take my hand.

"Yeah, I do. It's better than-"

"Cal," she said.

"How do you know my name?" I slurred. There was darkness closing in all around my field of vision, but I had to know one thing. "Who are you?"

As her lips started moving, the world went black.

...

I was somewhere warmer. Some kind of horribly clean smell, like laundry that had been washed too many times, hung in the air. I almost opened my eyes, but they felt so comfortable closed. I started to notice a strange dry, stiff feeling in my side.

"Wes! Wes, wake up!" Liz was there, somewhere. She sounded excited about something.

"What are you doing? Let him rest." There was somebody else there too, a male with a calming voice. He sounded like someone who was used to being quiet and spent most of his time trying to stay out of people's way.

"I have something to give him!"

"It's not urgent enough to wake him."

"Yes it is!"

I smirked when she said that. There was no way anybody was going to make Liz back down.

"You need to leave now."

"No, I'm awake," I mumbled, rubbing my eyes. "Ouch. Why is my throat so dry?"

A glass of water pressed into my hand. The man I'd seen earlier, a tired, very tan man wearing a nurse's scrubs, was nodding to me, encouraging to drink it. I took a sip and checked out my surroundings. "You're at the Ambrette Town hospital. You can rest easy."

I was laying on a simple white bed in a sparsely decorated room. A window looked out over cliffs and a beach. Other beds surrounded me, all empty. A few chairs were pushed back against a wall, and the floor looked impossibly clean.

"How did I get here?" I asked after my throat stopped feeling like I'd swallowed a cactus. I felt at my side for the familiar shape of a pokeball and almost choked when I noticed it was gone. "Where's Bagon?"

"See? I told you that's what he would notice first," said Liz. She thrust a pokeball at me. "Here he is. He helped me earlier!"

"You stole Bagon again?" I groaned and reached out to take his pokeball, but a sudden sharp pain stopped me.

"Don't move that arm until it's healed," said the nurse in a quiet voice. "The muscles on your side were damaged."

I nodded, but my attention was really on Bagon. I took his pokeball with my other hand and clicked it open.. The swirling cloud of white energy formed geometric shapes, and then assembled like a jigsaw puzzle into my Pokemon. He instantly lunged at me and started hugging me, making me wince.

"Take it easy," I said with a laugh. I hadn't seen him be this affectionate before. "How are you? You didn't get hurt at all, did you?" I quickly looked him over, and was relieved to see that he was fine.

"You're the one who was injured," said Liz. "But you did protect him. I take back what I said about you being a coward, Wes. You're a brave guy. As for how you got here, after Froslass speared you, Celosia and I rushed you here. I don't know what happened to the rest of the Flare people, they probably stayed to complete their mission. But I need to know one thing."

"Don't pester him," urged the nurse.

"It's all right. I can answer questions," I said, holding Bagon to my chest. He purred happily.

"How did you know that Celosia woman?"

"I.. don't know."

"But you clearly knew her," Liz said, running a hand through her ponytail. "You indentified her. Not to mention that she knew you as well."

I nodded. "I knew her name somehow, but I can't remember anything more than that."

"Try harder," said Liz, shaking my head impatiently.

"Liz, you're so bad at this," I said, almost laughing. "You're supposed to let me rest."

"I'll go get you another glass of water," said the male nurse, looking uncomfortable at Liz's bedside manner.

"Liz, I have a question for you," I said.

"What is it?" asked Liz, looking disappointed and unsatisfied with my lack of answers.

"That move… what was it?" I had never seen a Pokemon move that could seriously hurt someone. I had seen some incredibly powerful moves while watching the Pokemon League on TV, but they never left Pokemon with serious injuries. I had never considered that something like this could happen, and I was starting to wonder if my dream of going on a journey was a dangerous one.

"I had a conversation with Celosia about this on our way here," began Liz. She seemed determined to drop that name as many times as possible. Maybe she was hoping it would make me remember. "Froslass doesn't know any moves like that. Whatever happened was due to that device. Remember when the guy with broken glasses put a black device on Froslass's arm?"

I nodded. Celosia had been against it, but the other Flare agent had put it on Froslass anyway. "It didn't look comfortable."

"That was an experimental device designed to boost the combat capabilities of a Pokemon past normal constraints." I nodded. It was a mark of how much time I had spent with Liz that I understood every word in that sentence. "Obviously it wasn't ready yet."

"So a normal Pokemon move could never do something like this." I gestured at the bandages covering my side.

"Well, there have been cases of Pokemon using excessive force," Liz admitted. "It's extremely rare, though."

"How often does something like that happen?" I said, trying to banish the image of Bagon with a broken leg from my mind. "The chances of something like this happening to Bagon are so small I don't have to worry, right?"

"Back when we had a police force and our government kept track of things like that, the number was less than a thousandth of one percent."

"Finally, all those months of studying every irrelevant detail of Pokemon pay off," I said with a smile. I cleared my head of any concerns about Bagon getting hurt. "Hey, when exactly did we lose our police force?"

"About seven years ago," Liz said. "The statistics are still very recent."

"It's just like sports then. People get badly hurt during basketball, but it's extremely rare. "

"Why would you use a basketball analogy?" Liz wondered.

"Basketball is amazing," I said simply, as if that answered everything. "Besides, basketball is a sport for humans just like battling is a sport for Pokemon. The fact that they both have a similar level of risk is a good thing. I mean, wouldn't it just be cruelty to force your Pokemon into dangerous situations that you aren't willing to face yourself?"

"There's no need to worry. Battling is not a dangerous situation," Liz said. "Actually, basketball is probably more dangerous."

"Do you know what they were doing at that cave?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Who?" asked Liz, whose mind seemed hundreds of kilometers away.

"The group, Flare," I said. "What were they doing?"

"Celosia said they were digging for something," Liz answered. "It was connected to the prophecy by the entrance. Apparently that prophecy makes her organization nervous."

"The one about the hero of Kalos?" I asked. I had seen that as we came in.

"Yes, it foretells a hero who will travel through time and kill a flower. I don't know why everyone cares so much about those prophecies. Is knowing about the future really going to make you act any different?" Liz wondered with contempt.

"Prophecies are fun, Liz. They make us feel like we have some idea of what's coming next," I said. Life would be better if we had more prophecies, at least in my opinion. "And it's interesting that this prophecy is about a woman, instead of a man. All of those ancient prophecies seem like they're about men."

"Yeah, yeah. Feminism and all that," Liz said dismissively.

"Liz, you aren't feminist?"

"I'm not against feminism, I just don't really care about other peoples' causes. I think everybody should just focus on getting what they want out of life rather than making huge movements." Liz said.

"Oh yeah, feminists are useless. It's not like they got you equal pay or anything," I said sarcastically. "And who needs votes?"

Liz just frowned at me and shook her head. "You're annoying, Wes."

"You too," I said with a smile.

Liz shifted back and forth on her feet before pulling something out of her pack. "Look what I got for you!" She brandished two matching cards in my face, each embossed with a map of Kalos and a name in golden print.

"A trainer card!" I stupidly tried to move my right arm again, winced in pain, and grabbed the one with my name using my left arm. That would take some getting used to. I couldn't really do anything with my left hand other than dribble. "Liz, it says Wes. That's not my real name."

"Oh, it's no problem," Liz said happily. "Mine says Liz, not Elizabeth, but the woman behind the counter told me it would be fine."

I started to wonder about something. "You have to have a Pokemon with you to get a trainer card, right? And you didn't bring Bagon, he stayed with me. So that means, after I blacked out, you caught a Solrock?"

Liz looked away and her voice dropped. "I caught a Pokemon."

"You didn't catch a Solrock, did you?" I asked. I already knew the answer from her body language, and I felt my stomach sink in dismay.

"She's just as good," Liz said, tossing a pokeball at the ground and catching it in a fluid motion. She had clearly been practicing, since she used to drop Bagon's pokeball when she tried sending him out. A Pokemon took shape on the hospital floor, something with two mouths and skin that gleamed like polished steel. I recognized it, and it wasn't the one I had promised to help Liz catch. "That woman told me to catch her so we'd have help carrying you to the hospital."

"That's a Mawile, Liz," I said. I held the trainer card back up to her. "I can't accept this."

"I knew you'd do this," said Liz. She glared at me. "Why do you always do this, Wes? You're so damn proud."

"I won't take charity," I said. "We've talked about this."

"This is important," Liz insisted. "Wes, take the card."

"I can't," I said. "We made a deal. I help you catch a Solrock, you register me for the Kalos League. I didn't help you catch a Solrock."

"I still have a Pokemon! Are you really going to just waste that trainer card?"

"I know how much it costs to register for the League," I said. Getting a membership to gyms and Pokemon Centers wasn't cheap. That was another reason I had never been able to go on a journey of my own until now. Receiving Bagon and making a deal with Liz had finally made my dream possible. However, even with my dream in reach, I couldn't accept charity. "I failed at my side of our bargain. I can't accept charity from you."

"You've talked about doing this forever, Wes. The only reason you got hurt was because I dragged you into that fight. You warned me, Wes. Why do I never listen to you?" Liz sighed. "Accept the card."

"It's-"

"It's not charity!" Liz shouted into my face. "Wes, take the trainer card! If you don't want to do it for yourself, do it for Bagon! He deserves it! If you don't take the card, I'll take Bagon!"

"Okay, okay," I said. "You win." The thought of losing Bagon was even worse than taking charity. "I'll take the card."

Liz smiled. "Thank you, Wes." She shifted around uncomfortably, and I knew from years of being her friend what she was thinking.

"You don't have to wait on me," I said. Patience had never been Liz's strong suit, and after everything else she had done for me, I couldn't ask her to wait on me to get better, too.

Liz grinned and pumped her fist. "I can't wait! My first stop is back in Cyllage, then I'll go north to Shalour City."

"Sounds like fun," I said.

"Let's meet up sometime and battle!" Liz said excitedly, forgetting that there was no way for us to get in touch with each other. If we did meet up, it would be pure chance.

"Yeah, that would be fun." I agreed.

"Good luck, Wes!" she shouted. Her Mawile did a spinning bow in my direction.

"Keep her out of trouble, Mawile," I said. "She loves to pick fights."

Mawile nodded at me before Liz returned her. I saw the steel Pokemon grin at me confidently as its shape dissolved in a storm of interlocking shapes.

"See you later!" Liz nearly ran out of the room and I heard her footsteps echoing in the hallway outside. People were asking her to slow down and she was ignoring them. I smirked. Classic Liz.

"Goodbye, Liz," I said softly. Knowing her, she would probably have traveled halfway around the region before I saw her again. I hugged Bagon to my chest one more time. He had been watching my conversation with Liz, fascinated by us. When he saw that she was leaving, he looked really sad. "Don't worry, we'll see her again. Maybe."

I held the card up to the light one more time. Liz was right: Bagon deserved access to Pokemon Centers, and he deserved the kind of special food only sold there. As much as I hated myself for doing it, I accepted it. I put it on the nightstand.

"This will be the one time in my life I accept charity," I reassured myself.

"What was that?" asked the nurse, walking back in with a glass of water.

"Nothing," I said. "I was just thinking out loud."

He shrugged. "Now that your friend is gone, you might be able to actually get some rest. Before you do, I have to change your bandages though." He moved Bagon off the bed and got a new set of bandages ready.

I didn't realize how awkward this would be. I had to prop myself up with one arm and roll onto my side as he unwrapped various bandages. When he finally finished, I gasped in horror.

"W-what is that?"

Pink, puckered gashes tore at the skin above my ribs on my left side, crisscrossed with the black thread of fine stitches. The man wiped away small trails of liquid with a rough patch of gauze.

"Relax, kid," he said with a gentle laugh. "It actually looks good."

"That is good?" I asked incredulously.

"See? It's not infected, and from what I heard, you got lucky. That girl said you were hit with a spear of ice, but it shattered against your chest. Instead of a single, deep wound, you got a few shallow ones. Trust me, this is much better."

"This is really good?" I said, still finding it hard to believe. A human body should not look like this.

"Oh, it's not bad," he said. He laughed at my surprised face. "We're right by Route 9 for a reason, kid. You wouldn't believe how nasty some of the injuries trainers get on those spikes are."

I shrugged. "I guess I am lucky."

He started applying a salve with some cotton, coating my wounds.

"What is that?"

"It's extract of Blissey eggs," he said, "It helps you heal much faster."

"Blissey eggs?" I questioned. "Don't those hatch into, you know, Happiny?"

"Only if they're fertilized," he assured me. His tired tone of voice told me that he had explained this particular point too many times. "Don't worry, kid. No Pokemon were hurt in the making of this.

He then showed me how to wrap my wounds and left a few pain pills on the table.

"You're making great progress," he said. "You should be able to leave here in a day or two."

A few days? Madame Amedee was going to be so worried! I sighed. There was nothing I could do, though.

"Get some rest," said the nurse. "I know you're probably impatient to get back on the road like all the other trainers we've treated. Sometimes, you just need to rest. Trust me."

I took the pain pills, shuddering as they slipped down my throat. Bagon cuddled against me.

I picked up the trainer card from the table and looked at it one more time. _Wes Gabena_, it read. _Kalos Trainer Card. _None of this was like I had imagined, but I was finally a trainer. Even with everything that had happened, I was unbelievably happy. I drifted off with a smile on my face.

...

_Interlude Two_

He is unbelievably miserable. He climbs up onto the white wall, the hulls rippling in the distance, incandescent flocks of seagulls.

How had it come to this? Everything is so beautiful, a bird rising from the gray tree branches into the open air, clouds dripping from outstretched wings, until it all falls apart and comes crashing back to where it began.

Why did you leave me? His mouth traces the syllables in the empty morning. Everything reminds him that it was all a lie, all a desperate attempt. He was never more than a pawn.

A shield loses to knives every time. A beautiful soul always has to die. The hero he loves is the greatest enemy of all. Why?

The water is rippling down below, waving an invitation. He decides to join it.

No! And the option he keeps passing over comes back to save him. It's not over yet.


	3. Chapter 3: those adopted

**Chapter 3**

those adopted

...

"Bagon, stop it!"

I protested while trying to keep a straight face as Bagon splashed water at me. He swept his arm through the shallows so hard that he knocked himself back. Watching him flounder around, I finally gave in and started laughing.

"I can't swim with you," I told him again. "I have to keep my side dry until it gets better." Bagon curled his lip and looked down. "Don't pout, silly. I'll be fine in a week or so, like the doctor said, and then I'll stop by at another hospital and get these bandages taken off. I can swim with you after that."

After that convenient bit of exposition, Bagon gave up on trying to get me to play in the water with him and started floating around on his back. He splashed around, chasing random things and not making much effort to keep up with me. While he goofed off, my thoughts turned to Madame Amedee. She had to be worried sick about me. After all, I hadn't come back for days.

"She will understand, right?" I asked Bagon. "I couldn't control getting stuck in the hospital for days." Bagon just ignored me and spat columns of water into the air.

More than that, I was worried about how she would react to me leaving. As much as I wanted to go on a journey, leaving her and the Wards' Home behind just felt wrong. I had been helping her as long as I could remember. Could she even manage without me?

"I'm being dumb, Bagon," I said. "She was fine before I came to the Wards' Home. She can keep going without me." Still, I didn't feel good. After everything she had done for me, it felt ungrateful to leave her.

Bagon just blew bubbles at me, looking bored.

"You're right, worrying won't help me. Let's talk about something more fun. When we get back home, do you want to battle a gym leader?"

He shrugged.

"You don't know what that is, do you?"

Bagon's blank stare answered my question. As I began to explain, he swam back to the shore and started walking on the sand beside me.

"Every year, they hold a tournament of the best trainers in Kalos. Some people even come from other regions to compete. It's amazing! I watch it every time! Last year's winner was so cool- he was a trainer from Ransei with a Leafeon! He just dominated the matches," I reminisced. Bagon frowned at me. "Right, gym leaders. Sorry, I got a little distracted there. The Kalos league is just so cool. The top four contenders even get a chance to become Kalos's Champion! So, you qualify for the tournament by defeating the eight gym leaders in Kalos. Each of them lives in a different city and specializes in training a different type of Pokemon. The one in our city is Grant, who uses rock Pokemon. I don't know any of the others, but I figured we would start with Grant and then just keep going."

Bagon gave me a contemplative look.

"Yeah, I don't really have a plan beyond: go on a journey. The rest will probably just come to me while I travel. So, do you want to battle gym leaders with me?"

Bagon nodded instantly and hugged my leg. He didn't look excited to battle as much as happy to do something I wanted. I held him by the shoulders and crouched down to look in his eyes.

"Hey, you don't owe me for this," I said, gesturing toward my side, where dry bandages pressed against my shirt, making it look like one side of my torso had gigantic lats. "You don't have to battle just to make me happy. Only do it if you want to."

Bagon nodded, and growled happily while hugging me again. I let out a breath I didn't realize I had been holding. What would I have done if he had refused? I didn't know. I had been dreaming of a journey forever, and to have it stop now, right before I began, was unthinkable. I thanked Arceus that Bagon wanted to come with me.

"I was so lucky to meet you," I said, beaming.

Bagon and I played in the sand as we walked, and eventually, when it was almost dusk, we were back. The familiar shape of the city by the rocky coast greeted me, with its uniform sand-colored buildings and striking maroon roofs. I chuckled at the misleading sign that proclaimed my city the "city of peaceful strolls" as a thundering herd of cyclists passed on the bike path above. In Cyllage City, our running trails and bike paths looked better than our roads, which told visitors everything they needed to know about our priorities here. Our version of a peaceful stroll was a one hundred meter dash.

I noticed the trail I had run with Bagon every morning for the past month, which was not coincidentally the same trail my basketball team always ran in the afternoon. Bagon noticed it too and took off toward it.

"Slow down, you!" I protested. "I'm wounded here!"

I passed my school on the left, a sprawling, three-building complex that educated all the children and teens in Cyllage. Other students had left on journeys in the past. Most had come back after a short while, more of them disappointed than satisfied. A few were still gone. In some regions, like Kanto, everyone was encouraged to go on a journey with Pokemon. Kanto was a fairly ridiculous example, as they wanted kids to go at age ten! In Kalos, things were much less insane. Some teenagers went on journeys if they could afford the cost of a trainer card and supplies. Most couldn't make it as professional trainers, and went back to school, desperately trying to catch up so they could go to university. I smirked about that. There was no way I could afford university, even if I got a basketball scholarship. Maybe I could if I somehow made massive amounts of money on my journey, but that was a long shot.

"Even if I did go to university, Bagon, what would I study?" I mused. Bagon sneezed. "My thoughts exactly. Being a trainer is the path for me."

I stopped in the Pokemon Center to heal Bagon.

The clerks soon deduced that I was a rookie trainer and started lecturing me. One of them showed me around the built-in shop, informing me that it was creatively named the Pokemart and one was situated in every Pokemon Center in Kalos. He showed me the medical supplies, camping equipment, and finally stopped in front of the food section to hand me a few packets of food specially crafted for Pokemon like my Bagon. Buying them took almost all of the winnings I had earned from my battles with random trainers along the coast, the ones I had fought with Liz as my coach in preparation for our trip to Glittering Cave. I grumbled as I handed over the money, annoyed to be almost broke again so soon but happy to know more about taking care of my Pokemon.

On our way to the Wards' Home, we passed a small house with a very overgrown garden. Its gate was decorated with a relief of gears on black that I always found threatening, even though Liz loved it. I sighed, knowing that my conscience would force me to go inside and check on the woman who owned it.

"Before we go home, we've got to check on this place," I said. "Cleaning up after Elizabeth Moreau is my destiny, apparently."

I opened the gate tentatively and the walked down the narrow, overgrown path toward the small house's door. There was a time when this path was a beautifully arranged road of stepping stones surrounded by a well-tended garden, but that was a long time ago.

I rang the doorbell and then pressed the intercom. "Mrs. Moreau, it's Wes."

"Oh, Wes, how lovely." A raspy voice echoed back to answer me. I grimaced. She sounded even worse. "Please do come in."

The door clicked open at her words, and I held up my pokeball apologetically, switching it to recall mode. It was common courtesy to return Pokemon whenever you entered someone's house.

"Sorry, Bagon," I said. "See you soon."

As soon as he disappeared in a swarm of broken square patches of light, I opened the door softly and tiptoed in. The house was dim and slightly dustier than it had been last time. I walked up the staircase, almost going to Liz's room by habit. I knocked on the door at the other end of the staircase and Mrs. Moreau invited me in.

She looked terrible, the hollows of her cheeks even more prominent. Her brown hair, the same shade as Liz's, was plastered to her sweaty forehead in tiny clumps. I tried not to let the pity show on my face.

"Mrs. Moreau-" I began.

"Oh, no need to be so formal! How many times have you been here?" she objected. At least she had given up on trying to make me call her "Aunt". I could never make myself do that, it just felt too awkward.

"Have you seen Liz in the past few days?" I asked.

"No," she said. Her voice was raspy, like someone dragging a rake across a rough concrete surface. "Last I heard, she was going to Ambrette Town for the day with you. Did you two have a lovely date?"

"No, we're still not dating," I said, reminding her for what had to be the hundredth time. Talking to her, I could see where Liz got her stubborn streak. I sighed. "Did Liz really leave you without saying goodbye?"

"Oh, of course she did!" Mrs. Moreau said with pride, her voice growing powerful. "I've always told her to go full steam ahead and live her own life without worrying about me. It's bad enough that I have to deal with this illness, I don't want it to stand in my daughter's way too." She started coughing and reached feebly for a yellow bottle of pills on her nightstand.

I handed it to her quickly and earned a grateful look in return. "You're not worried?" I asked.

"Of course not," she said. "No one out there has more determination than my girl. What Pokemon is she traveling with?"

"A Mawile."

"Not a fire Pokemon? Strange. I always figured my girl would end up with a Pokemon like Arcanine or Charizard," she mused. She fumbled the lid open and somehow managed to swallow the pill. "Wes, I see that pokeball in your pocket. Does that mean you're finally going on a journey too?"

I nodded.

"Do you need some cash to start your journey?"

"No, Madame," I said. She had been trying to offer me money ever since Liz told her where I lived, and she never gave up no matter how many times I said no. She probably felt it was her job to give me charity, something I would never take.

"Oh well, then," she said. "If you see my girl on your travels, tell her I'm cheering for her!"

"Are you going to be okay without Liz here to take care of you?"

"Don't worry about me," she said, trying to sound confident and failing. "I'll be fine. I have my Smeargle here to take of me."

"What if you black out?" I demanded, not trusting her assurances. "Will Smeargle know what to do without you giving it orders?"

"I've trained my Smeargle here to call the hospital," she said. "Don't worry about me. Go out and have your own adventures. If I hadn't gone traveling with my Smeargle, I would never have found out how much I loved sculpting. You and Liz should go out and live your own lives! Don't spend your time worrying about an old lady like me." She wasn't exactly old, but she always called herself an old lady anyway.

"You're really going to be okay?" I asked one final time.

"Of course I am! Now get out of here!" she said with a chuckle that turned into a hacking cough. I handed her a glass of water, doubting her already.

"If you're in an emergency, let Liz know," I said. She nodded, but I knew she wouldn't. She would say something like she didn't want to add to her daughter's worries. Shaking my head, I left. "Goodbye, Mrs. Moreau."

As I walked away, her cabinet of medicine captured my attention for a second, and I stared at a bottle of pain medicine for what felt like an eternity. I was the kind I had been on last season when I broke my arm, the kind that made the whole world disappear for a while. Mrs. Moreau's eyes were closed, and she wouldn't notice if I just- I forced myself to look away, angry for even thinking along those lines.

I whispered goodbye again and left the house. I met Smeargle, who was desperately trying to tend to the dying plants, in the garden outside.

"You're not supposed to sculpt them," I reminded gently. When Madame Moreau recovered enough to see the state of her garden, she would be furious. Liz would probably just be happy that another distraction was gone, though. "Take care of her, okay." Smeargle nodded. "I'm trusting you."

I sent out Bagon again as soon as the gate squeaked closed.

"All right, now we just have to talk to Madame Amedee," I said. "You're finally going to meet her! Trust me, she's one of the nicest people in the world." Even though I had been with Bagon for a month, and I had snuck him portions of Madame Amedee's meals every night, I hadn't ever introduced my Pokemon to my guardian. Part of it, if I was being honest, was because I knew it would lead to me leaving. As much as I wanted to go on a journey right now, I was dreading abandoning Madame Amedee.

The walk back to the Wards' Home was automatic. Bagon kept pace with me, and I pointed to the gym's entrance, high on a cliff above the town. After this stop, we would challenge it.

Soon, the Wards' Home greeted me. The two story, perpetually overcrowded sanctuary for all orphans in the area hadn't changed at all, meaning that it still looked like it was slowly falling apart. I sighed, looking at a broken window I had tried to fix with duct tape and remembering the arguments of Kalos's conservative politicians complaining that we spent too much money on welfare. If only that were true, I wouldn't have to fix a new issue every few days.

Even from outside the Wards' Home, I could hear the sound of the little ones squabbling. I sighed. I had been hoping more of them would be out playing somewhere so I could talk to Madame Amedee in private.

"Sorry Bagon, but I have to return you again," I said.

Bagon growled in frustration and stamped a foot.

"Yeah, I know I just did this," I said. "But you really don't want all the little ones to see you. They won't stop pestering you. I'll introduce you to Madame Amedee after dinner when they all go to bed."

Bagon shrugged, reluctantly agreeing.

"Once we start traveling for real, I'll let you out all the time," I promised.

I quietly opened the door to the Wards' Home, my mind half-registering the stain on the wood that Madame Amedee and I could never quite clean off, no matter how hard we tried. The reason for the commotion greeted me as soon as I walked in.

Three figures were in our tiny kitchen, filling it with clamor. A little girl was screaming and crying, jabbing a chubby finger at another, smug-looking little girl who was leaning back against our oven, while Madame Amedee was balanced precariously on a stool, desperately trying to reach a shabby doll on top of a cabinet.

"Give it back! Give it back!" shouted the crying girl.

"I'm trying," Madame Amedee said, her voice straining as her fingers scrabbled against the dirty wood. Even with her effort, the doll remained out of reach.

I acted quickly, striding in and grabbing the doll. I handed it back to the crying girl.

"Wes!" she shouted happily. "Thank you!" She ran off happily, the doll nestled in her grubby arms.

I gave the smug girl a warning glare. "Why did you throw her doll on top of the cabinet?"

"Because I knew nobody could reach it, and I wanted to see them try," she said. She had given me the creeps ever since she arrived here. She was very smart for her age, and had an attitude like she was always sneering at the world. "It was pretty funny. I didn't count on you coming back today, though."

I grimaced, knowing I wouldn't be able to get through to her. "Just don't do it again," I said.

"Oh, I would never," she said sarcastically. I sighed as she walked away proudly, wondering how someone so young could be so cruel. Maybe some people were just born evil.

"Wes!" shouted Madame Amedee, just registering my presence. "Sacre Dieu!"

A portly woman in her early forties, she was my legal guardian. She had been taking care of me ever since I arrived here so long ago. Actually, meeting her was my first memory. As I grew up, I had started helping her take care of the new wards. She normally talked in an eloquent way, even refusing to talk down to even the little ones. Her insistence on talking properly and speaking like someone who came from money was why my vocabulary was what it was. According to her, you should never speak like you're poor, especially if you're poor.

She leapt off the stool, knocking it over, and pulled me into a tight embrace, holding me to her stout frame. A long time ago, she used to have to crouch down to hold me, but nowadays her head was at the level of my sternum.

"I'm here," I said. "I'm safe."

Her voice quavered with something like sobs of relief and she let me go. "Where were you?"

"I'm sorry it took me so long," I said. "A lot happened."

"You told me you were going to Ambrette Town for the day with Liz. What happened?"

"We did go to Ambrette Town, but then I ended up in the hospital and they wouldn't let me leave for a few days," I said quickly. "I'm-"

"The hospital?" Madame Amedee almost shrieked at that, and a few little ones peeked out from behind a doorframe, watching the spectacle.

I managed to assure her that I was okay, mostly, and convinced her that we should talk after dinner when the little ones would be asleep. I helped her put the soup in bowls and break up any fights in the long line of little ones that formed. It felt so natural, helping her serve dinner and take care of the younger wards, like I hadn't even left. Eventually, Mattheiu came downstairs, ten minutes late like always and holding a book in his left hand. He was the second-oldest ward here and my roommate, and he was always studying, hoping to get a huge scholarship to a university in Lumiose. He noticed that I was back with relief, and complained that Madame Amedee had forced him to help out while I was gone. I smirked, telling him to get used to it. I served myself last, and ate quietly, listening to the familiar arguments and stupid jokes, and trying to stop this one boy from stealing the others' food. I was going to miss this place.

After dinner, I helped Amedee wash the bowls and answered Mattheiu's questions about where I had been for the past few days. Once he was satisfied, he left to go to bed, and the little ones followed him.

When it was finally just us, I clicked open my pokeball. "Madame Amedee, meet Bagon."

"You have a Pokemon!" she exclaimed, staring at Bagon in wonder. "Hello, little one! How did you manage to get a Pokemon?"

"I made a deal with somebody," I said.

"A deal?" she repeated, running a hand along Bagon's back. He seemed to instantly love her, the same way almost all the little ones did.

A little more than a month ago, I had met a frantic-looking man on the beach, who begged me to carry a crate to a warehouse for him. He wouldn't explain the details, but he said it was very important and promised me a Pokemon I knew I should have been suspicious, but it seemed like my only chance to get a Pokemon, a chance I couldn't afford to pass up. I couldn't afford a trainer card, which meant I couldn't shop at Pokemon Centers and buy pokeballs, and even if I somehow convinced a wild Pokemon to trust me, I couldn't heal it after a battle. The man's offer a Pokemon in a pokeball was almost too good to be true, and I instantly took him up on it. After delivering the crate to the location he provided and waiting on the beach, he came back and handed me the sphere, saying he hoped we would one day do business again.

"I ran an errand for somebody, and he gave Bagon to me," I summarized. There was no need to tell Madame Amedee the full story.

She knew that giving someone a Pokemon in exchange for an errand was unusual, but seemed to take it in stride "Life is full of strange events," she mused.. She turned away from Bagon and looked back at me. "Now that you have this Pokemon, you want to leave and go on a journey, don't you?"

"I do, but I at the same time, I don't want to just leave."

"You should," she said succinctly. "You've been talking about it ever since you were little. You should get to experience it for yourself. To be honest, I've been saving up some money for you. I hoped I could buy you a pokeball one day."

"Thank you," I said, starting to get emotional. "Are you sure you want me to go? It could be just a stupid dream. I could be a bad trainer. Maybe I'd be more useful here."

"If you find that you are, you can always come back," she said. "My door will be open to you anytime."

After that, I tried to express my gratitude, but Madame Amedee wouldn't have it.

"We aren't saying goodbye yet! Go feed your Pokemon and get some sleep," she said. "You two have a big day tomorrow!"

Everything seemed so routine as I settled into my old bed, trying to be quiet so I didn't disturb Mattheiu. It was hard to believe I could be leaving this all behind tomorrow. I ran my fingers along the pokeball's surface again, reminding myself that it was real.

I was really about to go on a journey. And tomorrow, the day of my first gym battle, would officially be the beginning.


	4. Chapter 4: those fenced-off

**Chapter 4**

those fenced-off

...

"I'm not the biggest fan of rich people," I said. "Some of them are okay, but most of them just make me angry. See that guy?"

Bagon followed the direction I was pointing, his eyes locking onto the guy in the expensive-looking clothes who had just jumped down from the rock wall that lead to the mesas above our town.

"That's Dominic," I said. "His parents are some of the richest people in Kalos. I've gone to school with him for seven years, and he's never said one word to me. Can you believe that?"

Bagon nodded his head aimlessly, clearly not paying close attention, but I kept talking anyway.

"He probably thinks I'm too poor to be worthy of his time," I said angrily. "Just seeing him makes me mad. What's he doing out here before school starts? Why are his clothes dirty? Why would he be climbing rocks in a collared shirt and slacks? I don't know, and I bet if I asked him, he wouldn't tell me. Actually, I'm surprised he even walks to school."

I kept watching Dominic for a little while longer. His mixed-race skin was always a perfectly even color of light brown, which annoyed me. Mine My skin never even stayed tan. His curly hair was close-cropped and orderly on the sides, only going a bit wild in the front. I wondered if he had a butler who styled his hair for him.

"Why do rich people think they're better than the rest of us?" I wondered out loud. "I can understand having a big ego if you work your way up from nothing, but why do kids who have rich parents act like that? They've done nothing. They've just had life handed to them. And they go around not talking to the rest of us. Let's keep going, Bagon. Looking at him is just making me mad."

I looked around, but Bagon wasn't sitting beside me anymore. Instead, he had kept going while I ranted, and was now far ahead of me.

"Hey, don't leave me!" I shouted.

Yes, if I was being honest most of my dislike of rich people came from envy, but I still had a right to be mad. Bagon couldn't just get bored of me like that! I had more to say, dammit!

I followed Bagon up to the gym. I had come here before a few times, sometimes to do some rock climbing, sometimes to watch Pokemon battles with Liz and talk about how envious we both were. But no matter how many times I came here, the sheer beauty of this place blew me away.

The Gym was a miniature mountain of smooth rock that began as green but slowly transitioned to orange as it rose, interrupted by patches of climbing wall that insulted the natural beauty of the rock face. At the top, Grant, our tall, dark, stone-haired, very toned gym leader waited, looking down on the trainers beneath him. Behind him, a graceful waterfall emptied into the moat around the gym, which I crossed on a bridge carved from white stone. The entire Gym was enclosed in a cavern, part of which was circular and wrapped itself around the spire, with bright lights attached in an industrial pattern. Behind Grant, the cavern receded away into pure darkness; only the stone outcropping that the water poured from was visible.

I heard Bagon make a cute little sound, something that sounded like a growl backwards.

"This place is impressive, right?" I asked. "You ready?"

On a shelf up above, I could see a girl challenger with a Spinarak battling a rugged man with a Roggenrola. I couldn't wait to start battling too.

I walked over to the patch of climbing wall on my right and ascended.

Or well, I tried. I ended up awkwardly stumbling after my side burned. It took me a few tries to find a way of climbing that took the pressure off my side, and I'm sure it looked awkward and uneven, what with me placing all my weight on one side. But it worked, and that was all that mattered. Bagon struggled and scuffed his way up the wall after me, requiring only some cheering and a helping hand at the top. He was embarrassed about it at first, but quickly got over that and started enjoying himself.

The climbing wall was a series of plastic handholds on a sheet of metal painted with a facsimile of large, flat rocks. I stepped down onto a higher floor, noticing the carved paths that ringed the spire. Together with the patches of climbing wall, they formed an intricate labyrinth. I couldn't even see the path that led to the peak, so I decided to climb blindly and train on the way by battling Gym trainers.

"Hey!" I heard, as a trainer called out to me. "Are you up for a battle? It's a nice break after all this climbing."

"Sure," I answered, noticing the size of the stretch of flat rock we were on and the locations of the staircases. "Go, Bagon!"

"Dwebble!" my opponent shouted quite unnecessarily. His little Pokemon was already out of its pokeball, playing in the rocks around him, and all he really did was scream its name at it. It even looked up at him with a resigned expression, as if to say, _really dude?_

"Start with Leer!" I said.

Bagon followed my orders and glared at the rock Pokemon. I could clearly see the fear in its cute eyes.

"Feint Attack!" called the Gym trainer.

Dwebble scuttled out of sight. A second later, I saw it appear behind Bagon and deliver a blow with its claws. Bagon didn't seem to take much damage.

"Bite!" I called.

Bagon delivered Bite, something I was used to by now. Dwebble seemed to take some damage, but it could definitely still fight.

My opponent said something quietly and ordered Rock Blast. Dwebble moved quickly and sent a volley of stone missiles toward Bagon.

"Get out of there," I ordered, jumping aside myself as a stray rock flew at me. "Climb the path!"

Bagon scrambled up the path on my right, managing to avoid most of the stones. Bagon was now in perfect position to finish it.

"Jump up onto that rock!" I pointed, waiting until he followed my command and was right above Dwebble. "Bite!"

Bagon leapt down, using the fall to increase the power of his strike. Dwebble crumpled under his blow, a powerful knockout.

The Gym trainer recalled his Pokemon and shrugged, saying, "No pain, no gain." He handed me the prize money.

I healed Bagon using one of my potions, grumbling again about only having five. It was all I had been able to afford, and I could already tell that was not going to be enough. Still, we moved on.

There were two paths to choose from. Both led higher to where the rock changed color from the blue of the ocean to the orange of a sunset. I chose the one that led to an orange platform and started climbing. I jumped down when I came around the corner and realized that it led nowhere.

I held my side. The climbing was starting to hurt, so I found the painkillers that the Nurse had given me and swallowed one. It didn't start working immediately, but I decided to ignore the pain and keep going. I took another, just because I didn't want this pain to distract me during my Gym battle. Not because I was enjoying the feeling or abusing it, right? Just because I needed to be absolutely focused during my first gym battle.

I followed the path I was on, which twisted around the mountain. When I had found another patch of climbing wall and was about to start ascending, a Gym trainer stopped me.

"Only those with a noble spirit can challenge the Cyllage City Gym!" she declared pretentiously, brandishing a Pokeball at me.

She sent out a Solrock, which made me think of Liz. Liz would be somewhere near the Menhir trail by now, or in Geosenge Town. Maybe she had already gotten her first badge. I sighed, already missing that annoying crazy girl.

I gestured for Bagon to face the Solrock and called for my opening attack. "Leer!"

The opposing Solrock flinched back from Bagon's terrifying glare, and I called for a Bite next to capitalize on the opportunity. This was pretty much our only reliable strategy so far, but it was working. We would learn more later, for sure.

Bagon bit down on Solrock, dealing some serious damage. Altough its armored skin was so tough that Bagon's move didn't even leave a slight mark, the Solrock visibly looked exhausted. My opponent called for a Psywave. Her Solrock spun rapidly and unleashed an undulating wave of power that I could only see because of the disturbance it created in the air. I called for Bagon to dodge the move, but he couldn't, and the Psychic power hit him full-force. He looked nauseated and dizzy after the move finished, and his eyes started to narrow in blind rage.

"Bagon, don't lose it! Stay with me!" I shouted.

Bagon looked in my direction, snarling savagely. As soon as his eyes met mine, he seemed to shake his head and force himself to return to normal.

"Can you keep going?" I asked.

Bagon breathed deeply and seemed to force himself to focus again. He nodded to me.

"Bite!" I called, proud of my Pokemon's determination.

Bagon landed another Bite, and Solrock looked so weak that another Bite would definitely finish it. But my opponent didn't give up.

"Fire Spin!" she shouted.

Solrock blasted Bagon with fire, and the flames began to swirl around him viciously, trapping him in a swirl of fire.

The flames were so close to my face, and the move reminded me of my nightmares. I shouted and jumped back, landing hard on the stone ground. I panicked for a few seconds, but then forced myself to calm down and focused on Bagon, who was writhing around in the flames with desperation in his eyes. If he wasn't allowing himself to panic, I couldn't either. It was just fire. I was stronger than that.

"Bagon, relax!" I ordered, forcing myself to relax as well. "You can do this! Just hit Solrock with one more move, and we win!"

Bagon's panic died as my words reached him, and he roared at Solrock. For some reason, the flames from the Fire Spin swirled outward as he bellowed, forming a swirling chain of fire from his jaws to his opponent. The embers hit Solrock and overwhelmed it.

"Your spirits are very noble," decided the Gym trainer as she handed me the prize money. "The Gym was waiting for a trainer and Pokemon just like you."

"Wait, is that an actual compliment?" I asked. "Or do you say that to everybody? It sounds a little, uh, forced."

She grinned guiltily and looked away. "Grant likes us to say things like that. But you and your Pokemon were still great." She tried to say something else, but then stopped in embarrasement and climbed away as fast as she could.

"Bagon, you were great!" I said to my Pokemon, petting him gently. My heart was still beating quickly from the shock of seeing the flames. "What was that thing you did with the embers? You know, the move you used to finish off that Solrock?"

Bagon looked at me and shrugged. He had just done what I asked, and hit Solrock with one more move. I used a potion on him, and the small amount of burn damage faded away. I would worry about what move he had used later. For now, I was just proud of my Pokemon.

I climbed the wall behind the Gym Trainer, stepping down onto orange stone. That meant that I was near the top. I looked down: from this high up, the view was impressive. I could clearly see the small lake of ice-blue water formed by the relentless waterfall. The water poured out of the lake and into the darkness below, overflowing from two areas and crashing down into the abyss. I couldn't see where it landed, and the trails of water seemed to pour away endlessly, two small lines of white and blue against the background of black.

"Admiring our mountain, huh?" asked a deep voice. I turned to see a rugged mountain man walking up to me. "Y'know what? Climbing is a lot like solving a puzzle. It's a game of logic!"

He called out a heavy Rhydon, then a study Nosepass, and finally a towering Onix. Bagon and I were able to defeat all three of them, and the battle was easier than the earlier one with Solrock and Lunatone. Bagon was starting to truly master his moves. Obviously, they were pretty weak, but he was starting to display a lot of skill using them. I wondered if that meant he was close to learning a new one.

"You're a tricky one! Truly a mountain that I couldn't surmount," declared my opponent as he recalled the unconscious rock serpent that took up most of the small shelf we were standing on. I accepted his money gladly, planning on using it for potions, and maybe lunch. I was starting to get hungry.

I walked around behind him to get to a tiny sliver of climbing wall and ascended. Grant waited for me at the top, hands on his hips. I healed Bagon and then climbed the final step to face my first gym leader.

He wore a tight-fitting athletic shirt and all of his rock-climbing gear, with a harness strapped around his sweatpants and a clasp on his necklace of spare rope. Behind him the waterfall roared its way down from the rock shelf, sending spray into the air. A rainbow was faintly visible, and the mist had given Grant's dark skin a reflective sheen. Or maybe that was just sweat. I walked toward the Leader, noticing the logo of the League carved into the ground beneath us.

"All right Bagon, we made it. Are you ready?" I charged straight toward Grant, ready to challenge him, not looking at anything else.

"Hold on! What the hell do you think you're doing?" demanded a guy I hadn't noticed, who was in the middle of giving a command to his Fennekin but had apparently decided to take a break and yell at me. He was about my age, maybe a year older, with middle-eastern olive skin, grey eyes, and shaggy black hair, and he was wearing a rumpled black and yellow tracksuit that looked like it had been fashionable once.

"What?"

"You think you can just come up here and take my place? I'm sick of people like you!" he yelled, his face flushed with rage and his hands clenched.

"Relax," I said, trying to keep a straight face. His anger had come out of nowhere, and it was so ridiculous and over-the-top that it made me want to laugh. "I just didn't notice you. I'll wait."

"So what am I, invisible?" he said, ignoring my attempt to calm the situation. "Grant, I'm putting my challenge on hold. I need to teach this guy some manners." Grant shrugged and returned his Pokemon, saying something calm and wise that we probably should have listened to.

"Are you serious?" I asked. "I'm not battling you. I'm here to fight the gym leader."

"You're turning down my challenge? Coward! And what's with that scar on your Pokemon's face? Did he get that because he sucks at battling?" Bagon cringed when the crazy guy mentioned his scar, and seeing the look of sadness on my Pokemon's face made me angry.

"Don't talk about my Pokemon like that!" I yelled. I didn't know the story behind Bagon's scar, but it couldn't be good. And no one was allowed to say things like that to my Bagon. "Bagon, don't listen to this guy. We'll come back later when the gym is jackass-free."

"Oh, I understand now," said the crazy guy, his voice filled with sarcastic understanding. "If my Pokemon was that terrible at battling, I would turn down every challenge I got too. We wouldn't want your Bagon to get another scar, now would we?"

Okay, that was too much. I squared off with this random, awful guy. I had come here to challenge Grant for my first ever gym badge, but that would have to wait.

"Bagon, nobody gets to talk about you that way. Want to show this guy exactly how strong we are?"


	5. Chapter 5: those unstable

**Chapter 5**

those unstable

...

"Bagon, nobody gets to talk about you that way. Want to show this guy exactly how strong we are?"

Bagon nodded at me, his teeth clenched in a determined grimace. I smirked at the guy and gave him a hand gesture that was very rude here in Kalos. Hilariously, the hand gesture meant "okay" in Unova, but here it was a lot more interesting.

"Let's go, then!" he yelled. "Grant, our battle is over. I forfeit."

"Are you really going to call off our gym battle to start a new match?" Grant asked with that odd, quiet authority he had. "Caen, you were about to defeat me."

The guy in the tracksuit, apparently named Caen, nodded so vigorously he almost tripped.

"I'll have to ask you to move to a different level of my gym. I need to keep this field open so any challengers who actually want to battle me can use it," Grant ordered, keeping the annoyance mostly out of his voice.

Caen and I moved down to a battlefield below Grant.

"Let's get this over with so I can get my first gym badge," I said. "I've had enough delays so far."

"You don't even have a gym badge?" Caen snorted at me and gestured to his Fennekin. "This shouldn't take long at all."

I shrugged, not really caring enough to banter with him. As long as he wasn't insulting my Pokemon, everything was good. "Bagon, let's do this! Start off with a Leer!"

Bagon glared at Fennekin, making it flinch back into a more vulnerable position.

"Like we practiced, Sunny Day!" shouted Caen.

Fennekin raised its head to the sky and howled a stream of fire. The flare slithered upwards and exploded above our heads. For a few seconds, it lit our battle and the surrounding area in a blinding glow and I had to shield my eyes, but it burned out quickly.

"Almost, Fennekin," said Caen stroking his disappointed Pokemon's head. "You'll get it next time."

"Wow, you can be nice," I observed. Caen shot me a look. "Bagon, that Fennekin looks exhausted. Finish it with a Headbutt."

Bagon nodded at me and smashed into Fennekin. It was that easy. Fennekin sighed and fell over.

"Damn it!" said Caen.

"Ready to tell my Pokemon that you're an idiot and he's a great battler?" I asked.

"Not yet," Caen said with a smirk. "I have another Pokemon!" He reached into his pocket and somehow tripped, falling face first into the ground.

"Smooth. Nice faceplant." Okay, maybe I did want to banter. Just a little.

"Joltik!" shouted Caen, finally finding the pokeball he was looking for. "You're about to learn just how overmatched you are!" He threw the pokeball straight up into the sky, releasing an absolutely miniscule yellow Pokemon.

"Awww!" I said. "It's so cute!" I wanted to go over and hug it. In an absolutely manly way, of course.

"Joltik, show him what you can do!" shouted Caen. He seemed to be putting something in his ears. What was that about?

The tiny Pokemon nodded, and then started to make some kind of-

A wall of pure sound slammed into me, knocking me over. The whole world was swimming around me. Bagon stumbled and fell pathetically, but all I could focus on was the ringing in my ears. After a few seconds, it mercifully stopped, but my head was still consumed by echoes.

"-easy as I thought it would be. Perfect Bug Buzz," said Caen.

"Please stop talking," I said with a wince. "It hurts." As soon as the pain in my head calmed to a manageable level, I rushed over to my Pokemon to see if he was okay.

"Oh stop whining. You'll get better in a little while."

"Bagon?" I asked, shaking my Pokemon gently. He blearily opened one eye blearily and slowly got back on his feet. "Are you okay? You're not going to start panicking, are you?" A single tear escaped Bagon's eye, but he didn't look panicked at all. Maybe saving him in the caves had solved that problem. "Let's go! Headbutt!"

"You're not going to give up?" Caen asked with surprise. "All right, I underestimated you. You're still going to lose, though."

"We're not losing to someone like you. Bagon, show him what happens when you talk like that about us! Kick some ass!"

Bagon nodded, determination back in his eyes. He rushed at Joltik to deliver a Headbutt, but the tiny Pokemon dodged and used some kind of electric move in retaliation. We kept trying, but Caen was right. We were overmatched. Bagon was losing, and it wasn't pretty. Tears were streaming down his face, and my chest was aching with the desire to help him, but we couldn't lose now. Then Caen would be right.

"Why are you pushing him so hard when he's crying? What kind of trainer are you?" Caen demanded, shaking a fist at me.

"I'm a trainer who trusts his Pokemon," I said, pretending to be confident even though his words were making me doubt myself. "Bite!"

Bagon lunged at the opponent, but Caen shouted for a Thunderbolt and the blast of lightning stopped him in his tracks. He struggled to keep moving, but he just couldn't.

Was I pushing Bagon too hard? Was I putting him in a horrible situation? Was I doing the same thing that had lead to his scar?

I stopped for a second and just cradled my head in my hands, desperately wishing I knew how to be the perfect trainer. Should I order Bagon to retreat so he didn't get hurt again? Was I being an idiot? Would giving up now prove that Caen was right and make Bagon feel useless? Maybe I didn't have what it took to be a trainer after all. As my dreams of entering the Kalos league started crashing down around me, I fell to my knees, paralyzed with indecision.

A small tug on my leg snapped me out of my thoughts. Bagon was there, looking up at me with trusting eyes, and the solution to my problem seemed so obvious I wanted to slap myself.

"Bagon, do you want to keep going?" I asked. "You've done great so far, and I'm so proud of you. If you want to stop, I can give in now. You don't have to push yourself this hard."

Bagon smiled, then turned to face Joltik again. He thumped his chest and let out a whooping growl.

"You want to keep going? You're so tough, Bagon! Just let me know when you want to tag out!"

We lost, and Caen said some more things that made me want to slap him, but even still, I felt great. I cradled Bagon in my arms and gently patted his head, telling him he was an amazing battler. I handed the prize money over to Caen, promising him that I would get revenge and make him shut his damn mouth next time I saw him, but honestly, I was glad for what he had said. It reminded me to keep my own pride and worries about being the perfect trainer out of my battles and focus on what was most important, which was obviously my Pokemon. Even worrying if I was pushing Bagon too hard was arrogant, come to think of it. I wasn't forcing him to battle. We were battling together. He could stop any time he wanted to. In my rush to get a badge I had completely forgotten about that and had somehow convinced myself I was completely in control of Bagon.

"Screw you, Caen," I said with a wry smile. "And thank you."

Caen inexplicably flushed, maybe with rage? I couldn't tell. "Thank me? F-for what? I don't get it," he started blubbering and handed me the prize money, along with a small brown disk.

"Weren't you going to challenge Grant?" I asked, very confused. He didn't seem to hear me. He stumbled down a climbing wall and left the gym in a hurry.

I ended up leaving too. I went to the Pokemon Center to heal Bagon. Thank Arceus, Caen wasn't there. There, one of the aides asked me about the disk I was carrying.

"I don't really know what this is," I admitted. "This guy I battled gave it to me."

"It's a TM!" exclaimed the aide, looking pretty excited.

"So what exactly is this exciting TM?" I asked.

The clerk was more than happy to explain it. "TMs allow Pokemon to learn moves that they would never naturally figure out how to use. TM technology is based on the move Mimic, which instantly allows Pokemon to learn moves if they see them used. Some genius discovered a way to replicate that effect with technology."

"That is exciting!" I admitted. "So what move is on this one?" I started hoping for something amazing, like Hyper Beam or Earthquake.

"Hmmmm," said the clerk, reading the number on the disk. "Rock Smash."

"Oh."

"Don't be so disappointed! Rock Smash is a move many trainers use against Grant. It's particularly effective against his Pokemon."

I smiled. I wasn't sure exactly why Caen had given this to me, but it would definitely be useful. "How do I use it?"

"Just put it in the computer over there, put your Pokemon on the sensor pad, and watch the magic happen," said the clerk proudly. Was he this excited every time a rookie trainer asked about new tech?

I swiped my trainer card in the computer to access it, then inserted the TM. I released Bagon and got him to stand in the spot the instructions specified. An instructional video began to play, showing the move in grand detail. When the video finished, a pulsing sphere of rust-colored light blasted out of the screen and slowly floated down to envelop Bagon.

"What's that?" I yelled.

"Don't worry, it's supposed to do that," promised the clerk.

After a second, the light faded. Bagon started shadow boxing excitedly, moving his fists in new ways.

"Congratulations, your Bagon has learned the move Rock Smash!" exclaimed the TM-loving clerk.

"Great! I can't wait to see your new move!"

I returned Bagon, thanked the clerk for his help, and then, since it was almost sundown, went back to the Ward's Home, move out of habit than anything. I told Madame Amedee about my day, and settled once again into my old routine of helping her make dinner. Soon, I was laying down in my old bed again.

Tomorrow, my journey would finally be beginning. I frowned, remembering that I had said the same thing yesterday, and I was still here.

"Fine," I grumbled to myself. "Tomorrow, my journey will officially be beginning. Again."

...

_Interlude_

He's holding onto nothing but a cold metal handle on the top of a train car and that feeling in the pit you get when your body knows you're going way, way too fast. The train keeps speeding along the bridge above the seemingly endless canyon. It doesn't care how much danger he's in. It has a place to be, right now.

Somebody who was trying to block his way forward is now reaching out her hand to help him, screaming both his old and new names. Before she can reach him, his Staraptor grabs hold of his shoulders with strong talons and lifts him back onto the roof, where he's in slightly less danger.

Stop trying to interfere with us! The person in his way is pleading desperately, helplessly. You're just going to keep getting hurt, and I can't keep saving you. She turns away in shame. I couldn't even save your friend back at the factory.

You know me. He's explaining himself, trying to justify why he's in this insane situation. Interfering with scary, mysterious groups of people isn't what I want to do, but I always get dragged into these fights anyway.

I have to stop you. Her voice is taking on a new tone now, one that you take when you have to fight someone you care about as much as family. The tone you use when you've sacrificed everything in your life for one person, and they don't exactly understand what you're doing. The tone you use when you're looking out for someone else's good and they never understand you. The weapon on this train is too- I can't let you get near it.

The senseless fight continues then. She knows everything about him- his favorite candy, what clothes he likes to wear, his greatest dreams, the first words he ever spoke, He knows barely anything about her, except that her ice demon put him in the hospital a long time ago.

The first time they fought, she couldn't hold back enough to make it fair no matter how hard she tried. The last time the two of them fought, among crackling jets of electricity, he was almost her equal. This time, he's been through a lot and it shows. He's so good, moving in unison with three Pokemon, signaling and advising like he's in their heads, jumping from the train car to ride on their backs on occasion. He's impressive. Even though she can't afford to lose, she is so proud of him now.

She's fighting defensively, barely holding him off, electrifying the air and keeping him back with hailstorms. It's barely enough. She knows she's going to lose if this keeps up.

I can see everything you've been through. She starts talking again, sounding almost poetic. It shows in the way you move, the way you fight. It was you and your gym leader friend who shut down the drug ring in Laverre, right?

We did. He answers, not taking his eyes off the combat. His Staraptor flies a full circle around the bridge, flying under the train to pop up and deliver a surprise attack on the other side. The poisonous scorpion falls, and she returns it before it can slide off the train car. We're currently working on tracking down the main source. That wouldn't happen to be your and your group, would it?

No, it was someone else, She says, almost like she's apologizing. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the world had only one villain to blame for all crimes? But it doesn't. There are an endless amount of thieves, liars, murderers. If only we could just flood the world and start over.

All right, I'm going to file that away in the 'vague, ominous threats' category in my mind. If there's even still room in it after everything you and your allies have told me.

You have to listen to me! She shouts, watching Manetric fall. You can't go ahead to the next car! It's too dangerous.

My friends need me. He says. It's all he needs to worry about.

The loose cannon, the wannabe gym leader, and the one Bryony likes are probably already- Her voice breaks off as she watches a figure climb out of the hatch on another train car, surrounded by a storm of swirling darkness, his own tiny hurricane.

No! The figure claws at his eyes and arms, trying to scratch off the metal sealing its way onto his skin. A neon orange letter like something you'd see on an alarm clock at three in the morning in a hotel room filled with cheap perfume and smoke flashes on the metal that's blocking off his mouth.

It's the weapon I was worried about. She thanks Arceus that it happened to this strange boy she barely knows and not her current opponent.

What's happening to him? He asks, calling a move that knocks out her final Pokemon. As they watch, the figure falls and slides off the train, his forms plummeting into the canyon below. He can't let this happens. He instantly signals to a flying Pokemon and jumps on. He can't let this happen to someone else he really cares about. Not after last time.

Caen! I won't let you fall!


End file.
